A Call for Ambassadors

摘要

That statement from Robert Mondavi's autobiography truly inspires me. Since I first read those words, I've become keenly aware of how this and other things he says about his career in the wine industry apply not only to my life and career, but also to what we all do in shaping a different kind of liquid for our clients. Mondavi single-handedly transformed the U.S. wine industry. He founded his company in the mid-1960s at a point when growers here were producing high-volume, largely mediocre products and selling them cheap. At that time, the U.S. wine industry was totally overshadowed by the European chateaux. Mondavi decided to step into the sun. He came along and said, "We're going to produce world-class wines," challenging his industry and the marketplace with the crazy idea that he could take a combination of old princi- ples, traditions and techniques, then apply American technology to produce top-quality, world-class wines. For years, people in the industry thought he was crazy, muttering about "Bob's Follies." But Mondavi stuck to his plan and kept his focus.